At the $100m headquarters Sepp Blatter has built for Fifa high on a hill above Zurich, the president of football's world governing body mounted a defiant, embattled and, at points, irritable defence as a tide of corruption allegations lapped at the Fifa gates.

When repeating his overarching argument, that he regards Fifa as untouchable even by governments, accountable only to its own "family within", Blatter even came close to using the phrase Crisis? What crisis?

Asked if this is indeed a crisis for Fifa, with two executive committee members suspended and one, Jack Warner, threatening to unleash a "tsunami" against Fifa which began on Sunday night with allegations of impropriety against Blatter himself, the president said: "Crisis? What is a crisis? Football is not in a crisis. We are only in some difficulties, and the difficulties will be solved within the football family."

Despite the extraordinary fallout which has involved 10 of Fifa's 24 executive committee members, including Blatter himself, being accused of corruption offences, Blatter's stance of invincibility remains true. He rejected any suggestion of postponing the presidential election at Wednesday's Fifa's annual congress. There, with his challenger, the Qatari Mohamed bin Hammam, having withdrawn and now been suspended pending an investigation into an alleged cash-for-votes bribery scandal, Blatter is certain to be waved in, unopposed, for his fourth four-year term as president.

The Swiss government is investigating whether it should maintain tax advantages and immunity from anti-corruption treaties which international sports governing bodies, long clustered in the country, enjoy. A British Conservative MP, Damian Collins, on Monday called on politicians around the world to sign up to his five-plank campaign for change at Fifa. But a long-term inquiry in Switzerland and one backbench MP do not constitute pressure great enough to overhaul Fifa.

Blatter's performance was an effort to draw Fifa back in line, calling for "unity and solidarity" – with him as head of the family.

Blatter brushed aside the claim from Warner, a member of the executive committee and president of the Concacaf grouping of Central American, North America and Caribbean football associations, that Blatter had given $1m (£600,000) in cash to Concacaf, and laptops and computers to 13 Caribbean associations, by implication in return for votes. Warner had said the $1m was for Concacaf "to spend as it wished", but Blatter replied that in fact it was for two football development projects under Fifa's flagship programme, Goal.

Whether the president of Fifa, a month before an election, should really be handing out $1m cheques to voting confederations, and whether, as Michel Platini, president of European football's governing body, Uefa, said on Monday, Blatter does have "his own budget" for Goal, were questions not asked or answered.

Doubts have long been expressed about the Goal money, which Fifa distributes to its 208 member associations from its vast income, $1.3bn last year, for selling the World Cup commercial rights. There are accusations it is not accountable enough, and too often in reality amounts to largesse dispensed globally to cement Blatter's regime in Zurich.

Warner's allegations, made in fury after his suspension was announced by Fifa's ethics committee, included the allegation that in an email to Warner, Jerome Valcke, Fifa's general secretary, had said, almost casually, that Qatar "bought" the hosting of the 2022 World Cup.

That tore open again the rumbling controversy over how Qatar, the tiny but oil and gas-rich Gulf state, won the right to host the 2022 tournament.

Valcke attempted a clarification of that incendiary comment with a statement issued just before Blatter's press conference, saying: "What I wanted to say is that the winning bid used their financial strength to lobby for support. I have at no time made, or was intending to make, any reference to any purchase of votes or similar unethical behaviour."

In his email to Warner, which Warner exposed, Valcke appeared to be witheringly dismissive of Bin Hammam's presidential election candidacy, and wondered whether the Qatari believed he could "buy Fifa as they [Qatar] bought the WC".

After Qatar were awarded the tournament in December, allegations followed of vote-sharing with Spain, forbidden in the Fifa rules. Then the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee published evidence from the Sunday Times quoting a Qatari whistleblower saying two African Fifa executive committee members, Issa Hayatou and Jacques Anouma, had been paid bribes to vote for Qatar.

Both men denied that, and the Qatar bid team issued a detailed rejection. On Monday Blatter made great play of the fact that he was appearing before the massed ranks of the international media alone – with Valcke absent. Asked about Valcke's comment and the clarification, Blatter refused to discuss it. But he maintained, again, that there will be no investigation or reopening of the bidding process.

"There was no problem for Fifa's executive committee to act, and there is no issue for the World Cup 2022," Blatter insisted.

Warner had raged in his own statement that the bribery charges against him and Bin Hammam, which led to their suspension, were "politically motivated" to secure Blatter's re-election, and he made a dark threat. "I intend to say a lot more on this matter shortly."

Fifa is bracing itself for further revelations, from the inside, as Warner has been at the heart of Fifa, on the executive committee, for 28 years, working closely with Blatter.

Blatter did say he will seek reforms to Fifa's "governance and compliance" after the deluge of scandals. He held up a thin, glossy leaflet for the cameras, and said: "This is our ethics code. I am not sure everybody in the Fifa family has read it."

Then he was gone, still the leader of world football, after all that has happened, untouchable, and cruising to four more years.